


Listen

by Jo Robbins (plenilune)



Category: The Demon's Lexicon - Brennan
Genre: Brothers, Family, Gen, Introspection, Missing Scene, Post-Book
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-24
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 05:25:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/38253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plenilune/pseuds/Jo%20Robbins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick and Alan, after the end and the beginning. Major spoilers for The Demon's Lexicon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Listen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lise/gifts).



   They go home.

   Not immediately, perhaps not even soon afterwards, but Nick, still feeling as though he does not quite fit inside of his body, does not really notice very much of what happens. Mostly he remembers being on the Tube, and Alan is holding his hand in the way that he used to when Nick was a great deal smaller (and still smaller than Alan), not a gesture of comfort, exactly, but a gesture of ‘you belong to me and I will take care of you’, Nick thinks, even though words still hurt a little, like lye on his skin. He thinks that Alan and Mae and Jamie talk a little, but mostly their words shiver past him, and he can only hear small, incidental sounds – the rumble of the tracks; the soft chiming of Mae’s jewellery; the shuffle of people’s feet against the floor; the rustling of papers, clothing, bags; the soft, tired murmurs of the other passengers.

   Still words. He wishes they would stop.

   The house is dark, and Nick mostly wants to sleep, but his eyes are relentlessly open. Mae and Jamie seem to want to be alone as much as he does, and Mae throws a shrewd Mae-look over her shoulder at Nick, or Alan, or possibly both of them, before leading Jamie away to someplace they can be _alone_. They are probably going to_ talk_, Nick thinks. They do that.

   He sinks into a chair, reluctant to find his bedroom, somehow. Alan is watching him. He can feel it. Maybe he’s waiting for Nick to stop being Nick and start being Demon Nick, except that Nick doesn’t really know what that means. Is he going to change? Has he changed already? He’s beginning to be not sure about who Nick was and what it meant to be him, except he can’t really feel out his demon self, not down here in this body, though it is starting to feel a little less as though it has shrunk too tightly on him like a badly washed jumper.

   Alan says, “I don’t suppose you want to share your feelings now,” and smiles, warmly, even though it doesn’t make any sense to smile _now_; Nick guesses that it’s supposed to be a gesture, like holding his hand earlier, a ‘let us be okay’ gesture. He works out a smile back, sort of, because he doesn’t want Alan to think he’s reconsidering, that he wants to go back, that he wants to be… Other.

   “Going to bed?” asks Alan, shrugging off his coat.

   Nick shrugs. “Maybe later,” he manages to say. Words feel thick on his tongue, but not as alien as they did.

   “Right,” says Alan. “Can’t sleep either. I’m just going to… read, and things. Here. If you don’t mind me here.”

   “That’s all right,” says Nick.

   Alan settles into the battered remains of an armchair, produces a book, and proceeds to disappear into it, eyebrows furrowed, eyes tired but alert. Nick watches. Maybe the world isn’t about to turn inside out and remake itself, he thinks. He lies back in the chair and listens to the noises of the house, and his brother turning the pages.


End file.
